Harvest
This year's harvest
festival begins, as usual, with the school service in church, on
Friday 3 October at 9.30am. In the evening, at 7pm, all are invited
to the Harvest Supper, in the crypt (entry down the steps on the
north side of church, opposite the gate into the churchwardens'
garden). Please bring some food to share if you can. There will be a
quiz!
Our all-age festival
eucharist will be on Sunday 5 at 10.15am.

Finance
Quiz
At the end of the
service on Sunday 21 September (appropriately, since we were
celebrating St Matthew, the disciple who knew about money) our
Treasurer Richard Powell, with the help of his daughter Martha, led a
simple and amusing quiz to raise awareness about the state of our
parish finances. We agreed that it would be good to reproduce it
here, for the benefit of those who were not present.

For each figure
there were three possible answers; the first person to get the right
answer got chocolates – but you will have to imagine these if
you
guess correctly!

Nil

A
The
money we got from the Government last year

B
The
number of legacies we received last year

C The number of
Father Michael’s expense claims this year

1,711

A the electoral roll
for Tower Hamlets Deanery

B
the
average cost of running the church every week

C training for
ministry costs paid by the national church per parish

24,000

A
our
giving last
year

B
the
subsidy we get from the diocese to pay for our priest and the wider
church

C the amount of
Father Michael’s expense claims last year

16

A the average weekly
donation

B our worst church
attendance on a Sunday

C the
number of people in the Stewardship scheme last year

2.79

A Martha's weekly
pocket money [£3]

B the cost of a pint
of beer [??]

C the notional
weekly amount given per person by those on the electoral roll

The answers:

1 – A. Some people
imagine that the church gets state funding. We do not (unlike some
other European countries, where buildings are maintained, and in some
cases salaries paid, by the state). What we do get is Gift Aid, the
system of reclaiming income tax that we have already paid –
but
this is in a sense 'our' money. We did receive one legacy last year.
The Rector makes quarterly expense claims.

2
– B. Tower Hamlets Deanery had 1772 enrolled members last
year, and
the training costs per parish were £1,650.

3
– B. The total cost of maintaining one stipendiary priest in
London
diocese - stipend, pension, housing, national insurance plus central
and training costs - is £59,000,
and our current Common Fund contribution is £35,000. (Why
this
obsession with the Rector's expense claims, I wonder?)

5 – C. Martha gets
£3 a week, and a pint is less than that – which
puts our giving in
perspective. Of course, many regulars are far more generous, but we
do need to widen our 'giving base'. Weekly envelopes are available
for those who wish to use them – this helps us to budget, and
also
to increase our Gift Aid claims. Please ask if you would like a pack
of envelopes.

Parish
websiteOur
website <www.stgite.org.uk>
has finally been launched. Please visit it and let us know what you
think, and also if you have any problems navigating it. Behind the
main pages is a wealth of more detailed information, particularly on
the church building and the history of the parish and its clergy, so
there is something for everyone. The monthly calendar is on the home
page (we promise to keep it up to date) and these monthly newsletters
are archived.

Quite
a few of the documents and books referred to are kept at the Bancroft
Library. Tower Hamlets has a particularly rich collection of local
history material, and there is currently a campaign, which St
George's is supporting, to keep this in one place and at its present,
purpose-designed location, rather than hand the building over to
Queen Mary College. You can find out more from the campaign website
<www.savebancroftlibrary.org.uk>

Parish
databaseOne
way of improving our communications, particularly when people are not
at church on Sunday when last-minute changes of plan are announced,
is to have an email list, so that reminders and other messages can be
sent out. This will be a 'blind' list so that your email address will
not be published to others. If you use email, please will you provide
us with your address, either on a slip of paper at church or by
sending a message to <rector@stgite.org.uk>

Lambeth
Conference – a summary from Bishop Stephen
Do not believe
anything you read in the Press!

1 More than 65% of
our time was spent in worship and Bible Study.

2 The first 3 days
were spent in retreat at Canterbury Cathedral.

3 The Bishop in
mission was at the heart of the Conference, with many outstanding
lectures.

4 A process and
structure which allowed every voice to be heard and a lot of
reflective listening to take place. A model that others might
follow to their great benefit.

5 A realisation that
in the Anglican Communion we have something very special and a means
of living within the mission context that differs across the world.

6 A march through
Whitehall. I have been on many marches, but none where I was walking
hand in hand with people from the most vulnerable parts of
this planet, who will have no future unless we seriously and
urgently address issues of climate change, poverty, education,
gender equality, HIV/Aids. These with the five marks of mission set
our global agenda for the next decade.

It was a privilege
to be with those from so many parts of the world where faith is both
vibrant and costly.

A
request from the Cathedral
Every year, St.
Paul’s welcomes over 25,000 school children and the Education
Department exists to ensure they get the very best out of their
visit. We urgently need more people to join our team of volunteer
guides for school groups. If you are reasonably active and enjoy
talking to children and young people, and are able to come to the
Cathedral on one day a week, we would love to hear from you. Full
training will be given! All volunteers will be expected to obtain an
Enhanced Disclosure from the CRB. For more information, please
contact Laura Arends, the Head of Education on 0207 2468 353.